


Sublime

by doorwaytoparadise



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Introspection, M/M, not entirely sure where this came from but whatever i ran with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorwaytoparadise/pseuds/doorwaytoparadise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt was 'storm'. (Creativity Night on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sublime

There is a storm over Fitton.

The rain is pounding on the roof of the portakabin and the windows light up every so often as lightning strikes. Thunder rumbles like an engine overhead, and it feels as though the whole world is moving with it. Martin sits at his desk, paperwork forgotten, as he stares at the water leaving trails down the window pane. The wind howls and a sharp crack echoes through the room, but Martin doesn’t move, gaze transfixed on the sheets of rain he can see from his vantage point.

Douglas is, miraculously, sleeping through the storm, out like a light on the sofa. Martin has no idea how in the hell he can do it, but he takes this moment of solitary consciousness to observe. He observes the storm, he observes the way the lightning outlines everything around him, he observes the way the roof and walls seem to shake in the face of nature’s might, and he observes his first officer, resting peacefully despite the tumultuous mess outside. Martin watches the gentle rise and fall of Douglas’ chest and sighs enviously. He had never been able to ignore the sound of a rainstorm, no matter how calm, and he’d certainly never be able to tune out the one currently above them.

Martin thinks quietly in his seat. He thinks about the storm and the noise and the sheer power pouring from the sky, and he thinks about flying and having control, and he thinks about being in love. The link, he concludes, between these things is that they are all, in some sense, sublime.

Martin has never been the type to wax poetic or possess a particular eloquence with words, not like Douglas, but he knows, from schooling, or perhaps from a book he read a long time ago, that the definition of the word sublime is hardly as romantic as some people used it as.  
Sublime was power. It was destruction and grandeur, awe-inspiring wonder, and potentially terrifying. It was standing in the face of nature, staring into a hurricane, on a mountaintop, at a sunset, and being so overwhelmed in the face of it. It was beauty, it was strength, and it was, in Martin’s opinion, utterly fitting to describe the storm currently in their midst.

Martin turns his thoughts to flying, to the sheer wonder he always felt at taking off into the sky, at soaring through clouds and open air, the feel of the engines and machinery under his hands. All that power, and he was just one small person sitting in one small space, controlling one small aircraft in the vast emptiness of the sky. It was humbling, it was terrifying, it was amazing, and Martin frequently felt himself go breathless with wonder as they soared, even after all this time. Douglas would tease him about it, but Martin didn’t know if Douglas saw flying the same way he did, with the same kind of marvel, the child-like admiration. Martin remembers the one time they flew through a thunderstorm, and he remembers that between his nervousness, there had been a thrilling delight, a sense of gratitude that he was able to witness the might of the sky up close. He doesn’t fear the storm so much as he respects it, respects what it can do and understands that there’s nothing that can stop it. The rain and the lightning and the wind don’t care about the destruction they may cause, utterly indifferent to any objections the small humans below them might have, and Martin thinks about the total helplessness this kind of natural occurrence renders on those caught in it’s wake.

He thinks about love. Falling and being in love, and how much like a storm it is. Rendering a person so helpless and vulnerable beneath a power they cannot control. Martin knows firsthand, after all, how impossible it is to stop, and he finds his gaze drifting to the sofa and the man stretched out upon it.

He could draw parallels between love and flying as well, but he lets those thoughts drift away, as the sound of the storm begins to fade into the distance. The rain has gentled to a steady rhythm, and it is now that Douglas starts to stir. The other man shifts and breathes in, eyes blinking open as he glances out the window, the last traces of the angry tempest now gone.

Martin listens to Douglas getting up and remembers another definition of the word sublime. _Complete; absolute; utter_. His eyes soften as they turn to settle on his first officer, and he thinks once more about love and storms and flying and the sublime. _Completely; absolutely; utterly_. He smiles.


End file.
